KENNESAW, Ga., May 20, 2003 – Heidelberg USA and world-renowned graphic designer Charles Spencer Anderson have launched one of the most extensive and complex Variable Data Printing projects in an effort to educate the print community about digital design using variable data.
Together, Heidelberg and Anderson developed the wrap cover of the May issue of American Printer, using vibrant visual images to showcase the possibilities inherent in variable data imaging. Designed by Anderson and printed on Heidelberg’s NexPress 2100 digital color press, the wrap incorporates variable text and portraits on both the front and back covers.
The design involves 52 individual images - 26 illustrations and 26 photographs. Each image corresponds to a letter in the alphabet. For example, the letter “V” is illustrated by the image of a vampire and “C” by a clown. The back cover of the publication matches the initial of the subscriber’s first name to one of the images while the front cover corresponds to the initial of the recipient’s last name. Each cover is individually numbered, making each issue truly unique.
“All the portraits relate to printing or to the NexPress,” said Anderson, a proponent of variable data imaging. “What’s variable about this project isn’t just the person’s name, but his or her initials, plus those front and back portraits. They’re like pop art.”
Anderson, who owns the Charles S. Anderson Design Company and CSA Images, is renowned in the printing and graphic arts industries for his design work for the French Paper Company and his award-winning packaging, identity and product designs. Anderson has worked with an impressive list of companies, including Coca-Cola, Levi’s, Paramount Pictures, Target, The New York Times and Nike, among many others.
Anderson and Heidelberg will also team up for industry events and projects that demonstrate to designers, print buyers and printers the range of applications and business opportunities that digital printing technology has to offer.
Variable data improves the effectiveness of print communications by tailoring the message to the individual recipient. Personalized marketing communications lead to higher response rates. CAP Ventures found in a recent study that response rates increased an average 36 percent by using variable data color printing and that response time, viewed as equally important to marketers, rose nearly 34 percent with the use of color variable data.
Prior to the partnership, Charles S. Anderson Design Company had been independently using the NexPress 2100 for more than a year to bring designs to life and test the capabilities of digital output. Anderson used the NexPress 2100 owned by Williamson Printing in Dallas to develop this project.
"When you work on Heidelberg's NexPress it’s like working in the future. The technology is incredible,” Anderson said. "The NexPress has no dot gain and the ink doesn’t sink into the paper to lose its vibrancy. That’s what hooked us on the NexPress at first – the really high quality. But watching the 52 images for this project come off the back end of the NexPress is almost like performance art.”
“There is no better proponent for Variable Data Printing to speak to the design community and our customers than Charles Spencer Anderson,” said Bill Blair, senior vice president, Digital, Heidelberg USA. ”Chuck believes in digital and his experience and notoriety will help Heidelberg actively demonstrate the capabilities of variable data printing and digital output.”